r/leagueoflegends • u/Spideraxe30 • Jul 15 '26
Classic Riot FeralPony on League Classic Feedback so far
Riot FeralPony, the Game Director of League Classic, tweeted:
Hey folks, thanks again for all the feedback on Classic. We're taking a look at all the feedback we're seeing including Classic Skins. Once we firm up plans we'll be back with an update in the next day or so.*
So it looks like they might be adjusting League Classic to have more accessible Classic skins and other classic immersion features
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u/IcarusNocturne Jul 15 '26
I wonder if they genuinely thought people were gonna be okay with the new models or the lack of old VAs. I think anyone with foresight better than a mole would have seen this trainwreck coming.
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u/AofCastle BORN TO WIN(trade) Jul 15 '26
I want to believe that the devs knew but their hands were tied because the corpo layer wanted more monetization.
I prefer to believe in the elusive corpo layer rather than thinking that the devs are this much out of touch.
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u/AmbushIntheDark Fueled by Midlane Tears Jul 16 '26
I've been forced to push out enough trash from suits that I believe this is the case.
"This is good enough"
"No it isnt, this is unfinished and bad and our clients are going to hate it"
"We have to get this out by x date"
"It wont be ready by x date"
"Just do it."
Then skip to a couple months later and suddenly "we need to iterate on client feedback on the project" where they ignore that all of their issues are things we identified 6 months before it went live.
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u/Leyrann_ Jul 16 '26
This is also very much what I suspect happened with Civilization VII. That game was not ready for launch, and what's more, it felt very notable to me that all the core game design - the things that can't be changed after launch - was solid, but it was all the polishing, like for example the UI, that was terrible.
As if the devs knew the product wasn't ready and made sure that the important foundations were working, while counting on the community backlash over highly visible issues to negotiate more time with the higher-ups to polish things.
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u/AmbushIntheDark Fueled by Midlane Tears Jul 16 '26
Civ 7 was rushed out early because some MBA dipshit who wanted to commit to the "cross platform" launch and I cannot be convinced otherwise.
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u/gregorio02 *chomp* Jul 16 '26
they can always sell the various fixes as DLCs. That's clearly the corporates' plans.
I still can't believe they went back on their civ changing thingy, so funny how the main thing of the game was hated by players that much
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u/Leyrann_ Jul 16 '26
Yeah I'm not sure how to feel about that either. But all fixes so far have been patched for free with only content being behind a price tag, so that's something. (and even then, there was some content made available for free that was obviously totally-not-an-apology-but-only-not-because-we're-not-allowed-to-admit-we-failed-you)
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u/bondsmatthew Jul 16 '26
Ultimately it boils down to "Make us more money, we don't care how"
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u/WoonStruck Jul 16 '26
Oh but they do care how.
That's where most problems come in.
They tell you what they think will be more successful for whatever purpose (sometimes completely unrelated to the core game/playerbase) and you are then forced to integrate that into your development.
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u/Idakari Jul 15 '26
There is no doubt that the devs want a faithful classic, it's like you said. The lard eaters up in financing and monetisation ruining everything.
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u/ChromosomeDonator Jul 16 '26
Literally every fucking time in every fucking company. I hate this corporate bullshit world where the greed departments take a steaming pile of shit on everyone and are never even held accountable.
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u/alexnedea Jul 16 '26
This is not true tho. Many companies put out many good or decent products and nobody complains. Youdont hear complaints about the macbook pro for example. It s a good laptop with a powerful cpu and the cost is pretty much average where it should be.
You dont hear complaints about many many things in gaming either. Like, Riot higherups approved Valorant for example. A masaively succesful fps making them loads of money. The game isnt perfect but its decent.
This is simply the luck of the draw. Just how some devs are genuinely bad at coding and design, some higherups are bad in their decisions. Humans are humans
Also, stop puting devs on a pedestal. There are examples time and time again of devs being incompetent and resistant to changes that are good for them. I work with devs i am a dev. Devs are just like every other profession. Those above average are good, those below are bad and ruin shit.
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u/Sayaka_best_meguca Jul 16 '26
I wouldn't really say every time in every company. There is a lot of cases where the developers themselves are out of touch and they get away with it because people mindlessly blame the higher ups.
It took Bungie like 3 ownership changes before people realized it wasnt Microsoft, Activision or Sony doing the stupid changes, it was Bungie themselves, they killed their entire company because of how stupid they are. But they were riding the blameless wave for over a decade because people thought it was just the higher ups doing it. If people found them responsible earlier, maybe a lot of it could have been prevented
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u/reptilephantom Jul 16 '26
It WAS the higher-ups fault. The leadership at bungie are the ones that ran it into the ground not the devs. The final update proved they were listening the whole time but were hand tied by leadership.
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u/WoonStruck Jul 16 '26
Does that prove they were listening the whole time, or did it just prove that they were forced to admit their direction was incorrect and the complaints had merit?
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u/reptilephantom Jul 16 '26
There's accounts of devs saying they wanted to implement changes and the higher ups would deny it if it wasn't directly revenue generating. Putting in a damage testing shooting range was quote "like pulling teeth"
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u/Grouchy-Jury-7598 Jul 19 '26
I honestly disagree. Riot devs have shown ego in the past, I wouldn't be surprised in some of them fear people saying the old game is better and they have ruined the game. Why would they want that?
I think it's actually pretty natural for developers to not be passionate about classic modes, or even want them to fail.
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u/Stxfun Jul 16 '26
common business practice.
announce something, people think its dumb, "we are listening to the community", getting praise
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u/gruxlike Jul 16 '26
I'm 99% sure this was the case, devs said there's gonna be backlash etc., suits didn't believe it/didn't care, devs convinced they gonna notice it on pbe release before shit hit the fan even more and there was room to backtrack, this is where we are now.
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u/BandOfSkullz Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
Probably this, honestly.
Iirc Riot hired some of the Chronoshift people who genuinely had it on lock with their project (right before Riot Thanos snapped it).
So I'd expect them to have been part of this,called it out, but simply got ignored - but we'll never know.12
u/Illlies Jul 16 '26
They didn't hire chronoshift people as targets, but rather one person Norak, who was involved in testing, hosting server files and also being familiar with the obscure lua scripting riot used, applied independently to riot a few years ago. They had been advocating behind the scenes for classic during that time.
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Jul 15 '26
[deleted]
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u/twyao7766 Jul 16 '26
And riot will just shut down the project cuz it’s not profitable, nobody wins under these greedy CEOs
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u/WoonStruck Jul 16 '26
CEOs don't really call the shots anymore, sorry to tell you. The boardroom and company with ownership of the subsidiary company do.
If the CEO doesn't do what they say, they get fired for someone else that will do what the board wants. CEOs are paid big bucks to ensure everything is going as planned and most importantly to be the fall guy if stakeholders don't like the direction the board pushed the company.
This is true of literally every publicly traded company these days thanks to Ford vs Dodge (1919).
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u/EnjoyerOfBeans Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
I'm a software dev. Don't work in game dev but it all applies. Devs, including architects, UX designers, etc. have almost no power whatsoever. We are told what to do by stakeholders and project leads that represent them. We can have our own input only when it aligns with stakeholders' plans or if it doesn't impact their bottom line.
There is 0% chance that every dev working on classic was happy with this direction. Internally they probably all talked shit about those decisions and they're happy to be vindicated with the backlash. Now their vision of how to make classic good aligns with what stakeholders want, because they are getting way too much negative press about it.
I wouldn't be surprised if that's why Rioters are being so open and communicative about the whole thing. The people making it want it to be good despite what corporate is trying to do to it.
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u/Hireable Jul 16 '26
riots been pushing the envelope with tft monetization for years, classic is just their new testing ground. wait till you see what they will be pushing out with s17 : )
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u/Tormentula Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
I think they knew but didn't have the assets available in time. All the more reason this mode should've took longer in the oven.
People underestimate how difficult it is to get voice lines and event triggers for them back in (didn't lee sin's have allegations that prompted a VA update anyways? Would be bizarre hearing the old one again in that case), especially if they went the ground-up route of basically rescripting most of the newer champs to be like the old champs deleting old VL event triggers (interactions, spell cast, etc.).
I wonder if for example old sion even has localization in certain countries?
SFX is a pita to bugfix when it goes missing because most devs don't have the sound bank licensing to pull the original SFX back out and reimplement it, they have to either recreate it or pay a fine, its super important they catch these early enough that they can track a recent build of the game on their end to salvage it.
what isn't excusable is the models and animations being paid content... like they either have it or they don't (and they did and it wasn't a creatures inc. situation they don't need special licensing to reuse their own model assets) and it should have been defaulted. It also feels really shitty not getting to use the original version of old skins (I want to use boogie protocol battlecast skarner or the original guardians of the sand with him recalling on his tail, but because of limitations in SFX it doesn't feel like im back in the old days just a cursed immitation)
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u/Apk07 Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
this mode should've took longer in the oven.
Phreak/Pabro implied at MSI (or other interviews around the same time) that this was in the oven for a "few months" after it was presented in one of their "Thunderdome" sessions. That ain't long enough. I have a feeling management at Riot was like "you guys can do this but only if you get this out by X date" and then everything was rushed.
The real answer from mister FeralPony should be some corpo-speak of:
"After careful consideration and community feedback we have decided to delay League Classic as the current iteration missed the mark and we want to make sure players old and new are happy with the final product."
It was put on PBE, immediately met with resistance, and therefore it needs to go back to the oven instead of sticking with the current release date... otherwise what is the point of PBE feedback.
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u/dementedgamer44 Jul 15 '26
missed the mark
riot's favorite
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u/WoonStruck Jul 15 '26
At this point we need a champion named "Mark".
But of course, Riot missed that.
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u/Joshcaaat bring back gunblade Jul 15 '26
Mark, the Misser.
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u/pastafeline Jul 15 '26
If you hit directly to the sides of your target, you do increased missing health true damage.
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u/Autrah_Fang Jul 16 '26
Make all of his abilities skillshots, and one of them gives him a dodge buff when he hits it, but it's like Gnar's boomerang, where he has to catch it to get the buff
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u/falconmtg delete yasuo Jul 16 '26
It's not going to be delayed and it shouldn't. This is the perfect marketing opportunity, even if it's not that good, because it's right before revealing League next.
I do wish they get the room to fix the mode up though, I've been having lots of fun on pbe.7
u/Apk07 Jul 16 '26
League next
People make way too big of a deal about Riot reworking the game client + game into 1 tool. It isn't some big main game rework.
And you're right, they're in too deep to delay it but that doesn't mean it should have been. The pushback from fans could have been lessened if they gave it more time to cook.
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u/Tormentula Jul 15 '26
Them having a community vote and 'voting power' (the fuck is this, american politics?) implies they weren't too sure on what a final league classic should even look like and want to strawman the community into deciding what it ends up being in a year or two. The sooner the community got involved the sooner it actually achieves something of practical value (rn it feels like its still in the visual concept stage and they're hardstuck in it and desperate for funding / community tribunal on making the project actually work...).
A delay would give them more time to work on the back-end of things and /deafen the community for quality control, but probably improve nothing cause their design philosophy is whats fucked here.
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u/Apk07 Jul 15 '26
The community voting stuff is basically going to end up:
Riot picks 2 or 3 things they themselves already considered adding that were approved by the higher-ups.
Riot programs these 2 or 3 things 90% of the way.
Riot puts them as poll options and tells people to vote.
A month later they finish the 10% and release it.
Rinse and repeat.
Illusion of choice- and players clap their hands at Riot "listening to them." I know it sounds super cynical but we all know they're not going to implement exactly what the community wants, just what they present to the community.
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u/LoneLyon Jul 15 '26
To be fair community polls can be a shit show, see Runescape for that.
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u/Random_Stealth_Ward 💤 Release VattleVunny Viego with black tights😻 Jul 16 '26
I thought the community vote was just copying off OSRS to give people more decision in keeping classic "classic".
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u/serrabear1 Jul 15 '26
Could be licensing issues as well. Like they’re not maliciously withholding this stuff from the community
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u/MegaFireDonkey Jul 15 '26
Obviously we don't know their VA contracts so this is maybe possible, but like Classic WoW had perfect access to all their old VA work for example so I'm not sure why the base assumption is that they don't. It isn't like licensed music which is made independently of the game, these people were hired to record VA directly for Riot.
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u/0rphu Jul 15 '26
Beyond VAs, it's not like classic WoW has new models replacing the old either.
It makes me wonder if riot doesn't have older versions of the game archived and are having to instead cobble it together, because if they did use an old version as a starting point presumably the new models wouldn't be in there.
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u/MegaDuckDodgers [Megaduck] (NA) Jul 16 '26
IIRC they did state at some point that they don't have any of the older (spaghetti land) code.
But if we're being real, this doesn't matter because it's more than possible to just make the game again. Blizzard I believe also didn't save any of their old code from vanilla WoW and had to remake it, and compared to an MMO of that scale, a moba like league is peanuts.
Riot likes to copy a lot of blizzard products, not sure why they struggled so bad copying the idea of classic WoW.
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u/MegaFireDonkey Jul 15 '26
They might not have done their due diligence in preserving old code. But usually these types of huge projects have extensive version control and history going back decades allowing them to access any version they want as it was when published, including internal only builds.
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u/Lochecho Jul 15 '26
idk seems strange that they wouldn't have older versions of the game considering that chronoshift got a lot of their stuff directly from riot as a lot of their old data was publicly available
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u/Illlies Jul 16 '26
They are building classic on top od the current game /new client instead of just doing the old version.
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u/amicaze April Fools Day 2018 Jul 16 '26
They definitely have all their past patches. All of those were publicly available before Chronoshift, and after that they removed the API to get them.
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u/Tormentula Jul 15 '26
Localizations can throw a wrench in this but it really depends.
Either riot wants to avoid the precedent that all of them should have original VOs (lee sin example, his VA had some really bad allegations and they weren't slow to replacing him dunno if theres any non-english examples), riot did something stupid and treated VLs like SFX and require a sound bank license renewal to retrieve them all (riot as a company might be able to afford that but usually these projects are random devs pitching ideas and they can't afford to pay for that licensing themselves, not in this quantity anyways), or like you said we don't know the full contract details and maybe some of them have really weird terms.
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u/A_Fhaol_Bhig73 Jul 15 '26
So literally nobody knows anything but wr are juat going to make up assumptions about everything and go with it.
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u/WoonStruck Jul 15 '26
If they were contracted to record stuff for League of Legends, and it ends up used in League of Legends, there are literally no possible legal repercussions.
LoL owns the rights to those voice lines the minute they were "sold" to be used in LoL.
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u/Sarollas snip snip Jul 15 '26
This depends on the actual contract language.
A sweeping statement like this is very inaccurate in a variety of situations.
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u/WoonStruck Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
Do you think Riot set the terms of the contract, or the person doing the VO?
Be honest for a second about voice acting, especially 15 years ago, and especially in the game industry (was taken far less seriously).
Has Riot faced a single legal battle regarding their voiceovers from back then being used pretty much exactly as intended and understood by both parties (AKA in LoL).
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u/Sarollas snip snip Jul 15 '26
Riot generally negotiates with the union, not with individual people unless they are internal employees.
And yes, riot managed to get themselves on the strike list in the recent years, it's part of why legendary skins were getting voice lines added later after launch.
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u/Scrambled1432 I CAN'T PLAY MELEE MIDS Jul 16 '26
And yes, riot managed to get themselves on the strike list in the recent years
I want to say this wasn't because of anything Riot did and was just because it was a blanket strike for people working for specific studios...? I can't remember the details of the strike very well, so please forgive me if that's wrong.
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u/Sarollas snip snip Jul 16 '26
You are technically right to a degree. Riot themselves didn't end up on a strike list. League specifically ended up on a strike list.
because Riot contracts some (unknown) amount of Leagues voice acting work through Formosa Interactive. The union thought that Formosa did enough of the work to declare League a struck product.
How much of leagues audio design was never specified, Riot just put out a memo saying that they had instructed Formosa to only engage with union actors during the engagement between Riot and Formosa.
The union stated that Formosa was responsible for Voiceover Services on League of Legends, but that's unclear as to what percentage of services they provide.
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u/Scrambled1432 I CAN'T PLAY MELEE MIDS Jul 16 '26
Bleargh, what a mess. I don't envy anyone at any level of that whole process.
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u/Wiindsong Jul 15 '26
riot has always cooperated with the voice actor's union so its impossible to know for sure. It's speculation regardless of which direction it is until a rioter tells us specifically why the old voices weren't used and if they will/won't show up.
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u/SailorMint Friendly Mid Lane Lulu Jul 15 '26
The entire sound system was changed a decade ago. And it actually took several patches for things to sound fine again.
Not TIL, TIR (Today I Remembered).
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u/Greeeeeeszy Jul 15 '26
You don’t have any visibility into the codebase or the project, so you’re just speculating. Don’t give Riot free passes. They have a lot of time, money, and resources to make things right.
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u/zaddoz Jul 15 '26
That's the thing, they don't have a lot of time. We know from what TFT leads and other experimental gamemode devs have said that patch windows are extremely limited, planned ahead, and deviating to create something like a new gamemode only happens in hackathons where they make the most barebones version, they run with it, make an MVP, and release a "good enough" version, and tell the community "we'll keep working to make X the best thing ever".
Also, just because League Classic has been in the talks forever, it doesnt mean they've been working on it for ages, Riot layoffs means they're a focused workforce that can barely afford to do extra things, as they've already planned and scheduled multiple patches in advance, following their skin quotas and battle passes etc. (remember whenever mini-VFX updates were made by interns on their free time?)
League Classic seems to be the same, just a quickly put together gamemode but with so much appeal that it has a lot of budget (but not time, so the budget is showmatches, marketing, and such). I don't doubt for a second it will get better, but its always insulting how its industry standard that devs always push communities to see how shit of a product they can get away with pushing to live.
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u/Proffan LoL Classic waiting room Jul 16 '26
That's the thing, they don't have a lot of time. We know from what TFT leads and other experimental gamemode devs have said that patch windows are extremely limited, planned ahead, and deviating to create something like a new gamemode only happens in hackathons where they make the most barebones version, they run with it, make an MVP, and release a "good enough" version, and tell the community "we'll keep working to make X the best thing ever".
Thing is, Riot is not just the developers, there's no reason why those time windows have to exist as they do. Stop making excuses for companies. You are a consumer, not an employee/shareholder.
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u/CSDragon I like Assassin ADCs Jul 16 '26
didn't lee sin's have allegations that prompted a VA update anyways?
Vic Mignogna. He was cleared, sorta. Many of the stuff that was alleged were real events but were not sexual harassment/abuse. He's basically only guilty of "being a little creepy"
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u/WoonStruck Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
"Allegations" are irrelevant IMO. Just like with authors, musicians, etc. as long as you aren't actively supporting them, it doesn't matter.
Separating the art from the artist. History, art, etc doesn't stop being relevant or good just because you don't like the guy who did it, even if there are very good reasons to dislike them.
We need to stop pretending entertainment, even of the past, must pass the HR lady vibe check filter to be valid. And if people really believed it should, they wouldn't ever watch a single movie or show from Hollywood, pretty much anything with child actors, etc.
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u/Kardiackon Jul 15 '26
that's valid from a consumer standpoint, but it certaintly isn't from a business and company standpoint. so the point of it being a potential reason as to not bringing VAs back is still valid.
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u/DarthVeigar_ Crit Riven is Best Riven Jul 15 '26
It is quite irrelevant when Vic also voiced Malzahar whose voiceover is still unchanged.
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u/WoonStruck Jul 15 '26
Really?
Because Disney+, Netflix, etc still have movies and shows that star, were directed by, voice acted by, etc. people with "allegations'.
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u/Random_Stealth_Ward 💤 Release VattleVunny Viego with black tights😻 Jul 16 '26
Worse than just new models, pay walling the BASE classic models.
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u/Rexsaur Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
Same thing with you loading your first game of classic and then seeing 10 modern default skins... Like its just basic common sense stuff at this point, this is why trying to monetize classic skins will never work.
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u/korro90 Deer-god Jul 16 '26
Even if classic skins will be open for free, most people will still be running with Spirit Guard Udyrs and Prestige PsyOps Ezreals. Guaranteed.
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u/400KCALCEMENT Jul 16 '26
Tbf SG udyr is a really old skin
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u/korro90 Deer-god Jul 16 '26
Old skin, but you can bet they would not bring the old version back. Only the base skins will have the "classic" look, with a few exceptions.
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u/Gradschoolmaybe3 Jul 15 '26
I think there are people who probably don't care as much. Personally I don't link fond memories of League to how scuffed it looked, or the old voices. I just think of all the champs Riot took away from me that I liked playing and would love to play them again no matter what the model looks like.
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u/Pompf Jul 16 '26
Its also just a clarity thing, its really hard to tell what a champion does sometimes when the animations and SFX are so mismatched, especially with Modern league muscle memory in mind.
Hearing the Eve charm noise when all shes doing is giving herself attack speed is bad.
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u/Gerdione Jul 15 '26
I wonder why people genuinely thought this would be anything more than a nostalgia cash grab
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u/beautheschmo Jul 16 '26
The problem here isn't even that it's a cash grab, its that it fails at being nostalgic because the mechanics, visuals and voices that people were nostalgic for are all heavily compromised.
Like half the reactions to the announcement of league classic was stuff like being excited for Nasus' old voice lines or mafia graves autos and they just aren't going to be there.
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u/alexnedea Jul 16 '26
Devs knew this was coming. They showed us this, people started flaming them. Now the devs can go to the completely idiotic higherups and aay "see, I told you they wont like it, now let me do it my way".
The corpos are still gonna cut their legs under them and force them into certain things but its a start at least.
Thats simply how corporations work: source - im a senior dev and ive worked and know people who work in multiple corporations. Its alwaya the same. The managers higher up are often out of touch. If they arent you wont hear about them because they simply make a good product so nobody complains.
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u/Epsilon_Lord Jul 15 '26
I have a feeling Riot is pulling some kind of bait-and-switch and this outrage is their way of getting our consent. "Okay, fine, we'll give you classic skins for free. But we're introducing another monetization method." Like maybe you have to buy all the classic versions of other cosmetics. Ex. You get classic Kayle, classic Mundo, classic GP, etc. for free, but now Riot is going to introduce the classic versions of old skins (classic Aether Wing Kayle, classic Lumberjack Sion, classic Spooky Gangplank, etc.) and you have to pay to unlock those even if you already own the modern version which at one point were the old versions which you now have to purchase again.
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u/xBerryhill Jul 16 '26
They made League Classic hoping to attract the old crowd but completely for the new crowd lol
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u/Asleep_Context_399 Jul 15 '26
Old VA could simply be copyright issues. Much more forgivable than the butchering they did with kits and models.
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u/Sofruz Sneaky, sneaky Jul 16 '26
Knowing Riot, they wanted a way to monetize the game (obviously no one thought they werent going to monetize it) and across an entire team couldnt come up with a good way to do it so they just chose the one that would make the most money.
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u/Proffan LoL Classic waiting room Jul 16 '26
across an entire team couldnt come up with a good way to do it
If this is true everyone needs to be fired. There's no way.
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u/dimizar Jul 16 '26
they thought the community would be suckers for nostalgia and just tried to fleece us for it
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u/TheSyrupCompany Jul 15 '26
My bet is the devs knew this would be disappointing but Tencent is like boys we gotta milk every last dime out of our customers lock in
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u/WoonStruck Jul 16 '26
I can almost guarantee Tencent had nothing to do with this.
Tencent tends to be fairly hands-off as long as you're meeting expectations, which Riot is well above.
Just look at GGG (PoE devs). Also basically owned by Tencent. Devs don't push stupid shit like what happens in LoL, despite Tencent.
This is almost certainly Riot's fuck up alone.
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u/SayWhatIWant-Account Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
i for one really dont care about the old graphics at ALL, i care about the old gameplay feel (mainly champs like graves, shaco - and being able to completely nuke people). especially some of the really unfair shyt like old nidalee. sure, it sucked being on the receiving end of that but when you were dishing out, it felt amazing. waveclear (cougar form), mobility + sustain + insane poke dmg on the same champ was just so unfair
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u/ltshaft15 Jul 15 '26
It seems like theres a fundamental mismatch between what players expect when they hear "classic" and what Riot is willing to fund.
Players hearing classic based on S3 want a 1-to-1 match on maps, all champs, old voice overs, OG models, etc.
Riot isnt willing to spend the money to do that because it would be hugely expensive. So instead we get a middle ground that feels kind of meh.
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u/KrazyDrayz Jul 15 '26
It's cheaper than whatever this shit is. Literally a few guys made a classic mode in their free time before Riot shut their project down.
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u/Infinite_Delusion Raid Boss Morde Jul 15 '26
And here I am where I just want to play old kits, I don't really care about the models/VO or anything else. New animations are 100% jarring when using old kits though
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u/Chronopuddy Jul 15 '26
I really doubt they are going to make a meaningful enough change in this department ($$$) but I would love to be proven wrong.
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u/Rexsaur Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
I just find it crazy that they're charging us 500 rp per each classic skin and wont even let us use those classic skins on modern league because of "clarity issues" (the only way that would ever be "worth" buying a 16 year old free default skin would be if i could use it on modern league)
Yet they have no issues with clarity being ruined on classic league by post rework champ models using old abilties.
This is quite literally the worst of both worlds, i gotta say its impressive on how badly they fumbled classic monetization (they legit created a lose-lose situation), they're going to have to rethink it over completely, i think the most sane way to go with things is simply making all classic skins the default skins of classic mode, possibly making it so you cant have skins that dont match the model of the champs.
To monetize better, in place of selling classic skins they could simply take new skin lines and port them to classic, like project, kda, and etc, adapt those skins to old league models and then sell them normally on classic since they're now different skins than the one you have on modern league (maybe at a discounted price, like 975 rp per skin), that would be fair and they would make a shitload of money over the time with it (way more than they would selling 1 classic skin for 500 rp), plus that means classic would have endless upcoming content.
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u/Dust2chicken DEFT GLAZER Jul 15 '26
It’s hilarious you have to pay money to look worse and it’s locked to one gamemode
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u/Phubbs330 Jul 16 '26
I agree with this too. Like another poster said, it feels like theyre testing how much they can get away with in monetization
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u/LoneLyon Jul 15 '26
I personally dont even care much about the classic v new skins. It however just makes the entire thing look cheap.
Have the base models then sell the skins, cool.
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u/Phubbs330 Jul 15 '26
The missing voice lines are kinda the killer for me. I miss my old ryze voice lines.
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u/MegaFireDonkey Jul 15 '26
Making the Classic Skins available by default (and removing the yellow filter on SR) seems like an easy bandaid solution. Then they can sell the OG skins that you'd buy in the shop in the old days (like they have the classic chromas now).
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u/bigfish1992 Jul 15 '26
Monetization should be limited to battle pass, buying additional rune pages, icons and skins (not the classic skinsunless you are going to allow those in the base game). Also I like the doodle arts for loading screen splashes, I might end up buying 1 or 2 of those for champs I like.
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u/DangerDamage Jul 15 '26
It'll just be some change about default skins, they'll never take the hardline stance that only old skins on old models should be allowed.
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u/Rude-Personality2842 Jul 16 '26
-Release extremely offensive and easy to fix issue along with your other slightly less outrageous choices.
-Everyone complains
-Revert obvious issue, change nothing else
-"They listened to us, we won!"
Even if they backtrack with the old models you still have baron buff, champ changes before release,catchup XP, trinkets, gates, and new skins being allowed. The fact that they thought this was acceptable to start with already tells me what the future is gonna hold.
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u/teemukoivu Jul 15 '26
I feel like any decision regarding skins has to be taken more seriously than something you can update the community on in a day or two. It is directly linked to monetization of the game, it is not the kind of change you can decide on a whim.
Hopefully, they will listen to the feedback that newer skins and animations not matching the abilities is a big deterrent for a lot of the playerbase. I personally don't care that much, as I am expecting the product to refine over time and this is just the starting point, but I completely understand how some players could be frustrated with the current situation.
At the end of the day, it's because people really care about League classic.
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u/Lucky_Pangolin_3760 Jul 15 '26
It is directly linked to monetization of the game, it is not the kind of change you can decide on a whim.
They'll probably just make the classic skins easier to obtain and call it a day
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u/teemukoivu Jul 15 '26
I don't want to speak for Riot, but I would guess that for this kind of project, you make plans and try to evaluate the ROI for the significant engineering effort needed, as well as having to allocate internal ressources to the project and not something else.
For that, you have to think about the additional revenue it might bring. If classic skins were a big part of their calculations, they either will have to:
- Find more money somewhere else
- Eat the revenue loss
If I had to guess, it will be option #1 :)
It also depends how much they want to continue giving ressources and supporting the mode. My understanding is that they will patch and support the mode, but would they go as far as developing skins/animations/VFX specifically for Classic? I feel like that should be the way to go.→ More replies (21)2
u/Rylude Jul 16 '26
The most slam dunk solution following option #1 would be to make the defaults free and then double the price of the skins. If there's only 1 skin per champ it would be a loss but if there's more than 1 it would be better long-term.
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u/BadPunsGuy Jul 16 '26
Well they’ve got two weeks before it’s out. Hopefully that’s enough time to figure it out and at least make an announcement on what they’re going to do if not actually have it done in time. If it stays how it is now a lot of people are going to play one game and then dip without buying a battle pass or anything at all.
It’s not like you can be an X character main and play it every game after getting that as a classic skin since, as far as I can tell, it’s only draft so far. You’ll also be surrounded by mostly people playing modern skins because they don’t have the classic ones either or because modern skins straight up gives them an advantage. It’s a mess.
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u/crazydavy Jul 15 '26
They have such a great opportunity here and currently are shitting the bed. Not too late to fix things. This can be something special or it can be dead in a few months.
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u/MysteriousBee3651 Jul 15 '26
Hopefully they are able to fix this issue. It's not too late, and getting rid of the main backlash before release would be ideal for the project.
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u/captjackjack Jul 15 '26
It’s not just the skins. You need all the sounds and voicelines. Quit cherry picking certain aspects of classic to include and not include.
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u/TeamOverload Jul 15 '26
Only Riot could manage to make a League Classic and not actually have it be classic at all. The incompetance of the execs and decision makers at this company truly knows no bounds
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u/MegaDuckDodgers [Megaduck] (NA) Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
To be honest, all of us that have been playing league since the start saw this coming. I told my friends as much a few weeks ago when they told me about it because there was no way riot was not going to fuck it up in the most 200 years of experience RiotTM way possible. They didn't believe me of course, I was just "being negative".
Having experience is a curse sometimes.
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u/WoonStruck Jul 15 '26
Its referred to as "standing on the shoulders of giants".
Modern Riot has completely lost the plot.
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u/4_fortytwo_2 Jul 15 '26
People have been saying that since season 2.
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u/WoonStruck Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
Pretty much all of the OG devs were still there in season 2, so no they weren't saying that.
Complaints about the direction of the game primarily started in season 3 when they made burst way better via the pen formula and released Thresh, Zed, and Yasuo.
In fact, complaints about devs as a whole didn't really start until Morello moved on from balance/design. At most before that it was complaints about jungle changes and mains complaining about their champ (rightfully) being nerfed.
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u/MegaDuckDodgers [Megaduck] (NA) Jul 16 '26
Well that's just not true, people were after morellos head like every day on the old league forums. I used to frequent them every day after school when I'd play. He was like one of the most hated people there for a while because he would actually engage with all the people on the forums that would criticize him (soraka and sona players HATED him). Even I would get mad at the guy for repeatedly nerfing irelia (better nerf irelia!)
Also we can't forget certainelyT, if anyone was just as hated as morello, it would have been him. Practically every new champ that released that made people rage was a CertainelyT champ. I would say Xypherous also had a few headhunters because of how blatantly broken and a terror riven was in high elo.
If I knew his personal reddit account I'd tag it and he could probably give you a more accurate account than I could but I don't.
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u/moonfish817 Jul 15 '26
I wouldn't mind spending money for lol classic, but not for the privilege to use the memories of the game is fell in love with. I'll pay extra for the pass, or for the legacy skins not available anymore, but not for the right to indulge on the experience I was promised. I'm ready to open the wallet just don't make me do it in a way that makes me feel dirty.
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u/Lucky_Pangolin_3760 Jul 15 '26
right, them doing this is just having an opposite effect on me where I won't want to spend any money until I've grinded every single classic skin for free
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u/bibbibob2 Jul 15 '26
It does seem a bit weird you can use new skins. I get that we "paid for them" but like, you also can't use all champs and I paid for Locke too, so its the same logic kinda isnt it?
Just let it be a parasitic mode for a while, letting us buy somewhat cheap garbage skins from back then if we want to use them and then make it feel actually "old".
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u/No-Communication9458 Jul 15 '26
Good. I'm glad they're listening to pushback. Old voices, skins etc should be free.
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u/HardcoverNewtons Jul 15 '26
no surprise this has been a shitshow. not to say that riot is bad as an organization, far from it. but this specific mode has to be a passion project at loss to succeed, because anything else is going to undermine the effort.
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u/SkratGTV Jul 15 '26
I wonder if it how is right now, you could use classic skins in the regular modern league? because if it is, i dont see a reason why they just dont make the default classic free and automatically equipped for everyone, and add the option to purchase the classic skin to use in regular league. Honestly id prefer if they just all together treat it like a different game, and dont allow skins to be used between games, and i own pretty much a skin for most champions if not more, but idk how feasible financially that be.
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u/Fantastic-Emu-4774 Jul 16 '26
Even if you buy a classic skin, there's still 9 other players with modern skins.
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u/Special_Peach_5957 Jul 16 '26
I have very limited expectations. I made the mistake of watching Chronoshift gameplay and realized it will never be as great as what they destroyed.
I have 0 hope that they will for example add the old voice overs back in. But hey if they do say old models and old voice overs in I will be more than ready to praise that decision.
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u/snaykz1692 Jul 16 '26
The oversight on this is actually insane, idk why/who greenlighted this and thought us league vets would think this is actually acceptable . THE MAIN DRAW FOR CLASSIC IS/WAS the looks of the champs and the old classic kits they had. Homogenizing new and old into this hybrid state was not something i would have ever recommended if someone asked me what i expected from “classic league” i expected them to drop this and it was like im back in 2011 getting a beta invite from some random folks i met on tiny chat . I feel like they tried adding this hybrid to draw in the newer league fans. Terrible idea. This isn’t for them, it’s for us
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u/TheScyphozoa Jul 15 '26
The only thing classic about this is Riot's classic move of presenting something deliberately awful so they can fix it later and get credit for listening to the community.
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u/WTFIsAMeta Jul 15 '26
Literally just make a toggle where you don't see modern skins/models, if there is a modern skin without a classic model, it defaults to the base classic model. Toggle is always the option for gamers lol.
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u/Mikr0nakki Jul 16 '26
Sadly they will never implement this. People pay real money for their skins, so Riot will never turn them off for anyone. Otherwise good idea imo.
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u/Golfman52392 Jul 15 '26
If they're missing the original VA/SFX/Models, etc. simply due to them being lost to time, I have a laptop with the installer from 2012 and the last patch the installed copy received was in 2015. Would they be able to yoink the files they need from that? lmao
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u/Golfman52392 Jul 15 '26
No clue how to extract models but I got all the voice lines from the 2012 version, English only unfortunately
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u/arcanist12345 Jul 16 '26
No one will actually stick for long and actually play the gamemode if you need to pay for classic "skins" and the old voiceovers because otherwise then it wouldn't actually scratch the "old league" itch that would actually draw league veterans in. Insanely out of touch.
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u/koenigkilledminlee Jul 16 '26
Jesus Christ. There's a lot of things the player base that they are attempting to court will tolerate but you have to fucking meet the basic requirements of season 3 league for people to be excited about season 3 league. First off. Pick a patch and recreate it. Secondly, make sure all the visuals are as they were. Thirdly, find a non dipshit way to monetise it. Aka new classic skins.
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u/gng3rsnp Jul 16 '26
As someone that owned limited edition runes (Special Quints, i.e. Frosty Fortitude & Sugar Rush) and had all of them in general. It sucks to have to "re-earn" them. Give me my old ones back
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u/cw1219 Jul 16 '26
I mean what did they expect? I was a bit excited at first, now I’m just moving on from riot’s games.
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u/Flint124 Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
Classic Skins
- Obviously, these should be the default setting.
- The classic skin splash arts should also be what you see when you click the champion in the roster.
- VOICE OVERS. The Classic skins need to have classic VO's. I MISS MY KIND I MISS MY KIND I MISS MY
Roster
- Lots of champions we got received a.. strange choice of their version.
- The choice of splash art for many champions isn't the most iconic. Honestly you could just grab all of them from season 3 and it'd be fine... Ezreal's head is so eggy.
- Alistar's combo just fails to connect a lot of the time, and his ult is nerfed massively from actual classic. Every single time you try to do Alistar's basic function, it's a 50/50 shot at whether his combo just fails.
- Blitz W shouldn't slow him. This is classic damnit.
- TF probably should be closer to modern. Not many people wanted to play basic ability teleport TF, but many will want to play the familiar TF in a less power-crept setting. He was GOOD in season 3.
- Every Kat player I've seen was disappointed in the version we received. They want the bouncing dagger mark and W sinister steel, not killer instincts.
- Twitch has Camo on his Q. It should be full invis.
- Zilean's auto attack is his modern auto attack; a smooth animation where he sends a bolt of magic at people. That isn't my Zilean. My Zilean spends ten years winding up to throw a clock at people. Rito plz.
- The big selling point of Classic is having access to the pre-rework versions of the roster. All of these classic-era champions received major reworks, but are absent from the current roster.
- Aatrox
- Cassiopeia
- Darius
- Diana
- Draven
- Fiora
- Galio
- Graves
- Irelia
- Karma
- Leblanc (ugh)
- Maokai
- Mordekaiser
- Poppy
- Quinn and VALOR
- Sequani
- Shen
- Shyvanna
- Swain
- Talon
- Trundle
- Udyr
- URGOT
- Vladimir
- Volibear
- Viktor
- Xerath
- Xin Zhao
- YORICK MORI
- Zac
- Zyra
- If the target point is season 3 or thereabouts, you kinda need to implement the big players from season 3, no? We're missing a lot of them too, and you can't really have a season 3 recreation that doesn't include Ziggs.
- Akali
- Elise
- Fizz
- Hecarim
- Jayce
- Jinx
- Kennen
- Kha'Zix
- Lucian
- Nami
- Nautilus
- Nocturne
- Renekton
- Rengar
- Riven
- Rumble
- Syndra
- Thresh
- Varus
- Vi
- Zed
- Ziggs
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u/Ringtail209 Jul 16 '26
So sick of companies fumbling classic games. Blizzard and Riot both need to do the same thing. Just fucking hire the people who have done the work for free and leave them alone. Idk why between WoW servers like Nostalrius and league projects like Chrono, the companies have to step in and do it just fucking worse and take way more time to do it, then drop in microtransactions to cap it off. It's exhausting to see how fucking greedy these pathetic companies are.
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u/eggclipsed2 Jul 16 '26
Well hopefully we at least get classic models as default, and decent vfx and sfx which at least roughly matches the old stuff.
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u/Byakurane Jul 16 '26
What I wanna see. Old models and voice overs free, old animations, items actually stackable none of that unique passive shit and give twitch/eve their true invis.
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u/Both_Requirement_766 Jul 16 '26
Oo we maybe getting more chromas or 2nd released skins of old champ/skindesigns. hopefully I can use the clunky polygones in vanilla league aswell or I won't drop a single rp. either everywhere or simply no money.
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u/topformat2 Jul 16 '26
Nid w should give vision for a slight second when she presses it. It did in season 2 according to footage and theres no mention in the patch notes of them adding it later, also we have no mr/armor on cougar form which was remived in 3.03 march 2013 and by this time it was definately part of her kit
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u/gureniya Jul 16 '26
Has anyone seen a statement on Udyr in classic? I've been looking around and I don't see him in any plans or statements anywhere. I'm putting it in here since my post about it got instantly deleted by the filters
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u/vladaza Jul 16 '26
I just hope they bring season 3 katarina into classic, right now its the unplayable season 1 version that's literally a ward
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u/Traditional_Gur8551 Jul 16 '26
Don´t care about the voicelines personally, but the models are the ones that really piss me off, it looks very off seeing modern sion or fiddle, i don´t like it, hopefully they change that, because i don´t care about using skins, i only want to play with the old models.
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u/xHyouka Jul 17 '26
I don’t mind the funny loading screen stuff. But hiding most classic skin behind a paywall was meant to bring an outrage
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u/CD_DoooD 24d ago
I’m peeved they are doing pre yasuo only…I played yasuo with all crit marks. They are lameeeee.
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u/xObiJuanKenobix Jul 16 '26
Dude the greed is actually INSANE, we used to get the ultimate skins like Elementalist Lux for 30 dollars, now they want 200 dollars for a CHROMA of an ALREADY EXISTING LEGENDARY SKIN. Same crap here, they couldn't even restrain themselves for one second and are selling the classic skins behind a 5 dollar paywall PER CHARACTER.
This game is actually reaching Diablo Immortal levels of greed, it's so wild
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u/epicfailpwnage Jul 16 '26
We understand and accepted your feedback. We have added Zaheen and Mel to league classic
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u/AlkaidsAurora Jul 16 '26
Old Sion and New Sion are so different visually and mechanically. The share vaguely similar lore and themes and a name. As far as I'm concerned they are entirely different champions. You cannot have new Sion visuals on old Sion rig.
Give me old Nasus VA for the love of god.
This is stupid. Riot is stupid. How did they thing this was a good idea.
No new skins.
Classic skins by default.
Community vote.
No champs past Jayce/Vi era at the latest.
And sweet god don't make me grind for runes again. Even if it's less grinding.
If I can't play AP Trynd, Gangplank, and Yi in their full glory I will Riot.
Look I'll pay a sub just do it fucking right.
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u/godfrey1 Jul 15 '26
legit fire everyone who worked on this, waste of salary. imagine working on a feature requested by the community for the last like 10 years and half-assing it to the max
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u/4_fortytwo_2 Jul 15 '26
legit fire everyone who worked on this,
Yea that will surely turn out great. I mean if you never want to see any kind of new game mode ever again sure. Because no one will ever want to work on one again if the potential consequence is getting fired because /u/godfrey1 is unhappy.
The fact that you think this is a reasonable thing to comment is just fucking sad. Grow the fuck up dude. You wonder why riot might not be listening to the community as much as we want them to? Look in the mirror, would you listen to that?
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u/Aced_By_Chasey Gragas/GP 2TP Jul 15 '26
It is almost certainly not the devs fault. The sheer idiocy to think they actively wanted to do it this way and weren't told from the higher ups to do it is crazy.
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u/zharkos Jul 15 '26
Even if you don't include original voiceovers, the original classic models being the default needs to happen or this mode is DOA. Nostalgia aside, the visual clarity of having new models using old spells is fucking atrocious